Soca website attack: Norway arrests two youths

Two teenagers in Norway have been arrested in connection with a series of computer attacks.

Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) is believed to have been among their suspected targets.

Local reports suggest other victims included the Norwegian Lottery and Germany's Bild newspaper.

"We have arrested the two we think were most important in
these attacks, but we still want to talk to more people," said Norwegian
prosecutor Erik Moestue.

"We know Soca was recently attacked, as well as Norwegian and
American sites, and that is one of the things that we are looking
into."

Norway's National Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS) said
the sites had been hit by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack,
in which large amounts of data were sent to the owner's servers in an
attempt to overwhelm them.

It added that the 18- and 19-year-olds were charged at the
end of last week following electronic attacks over a period lasting
"several weeks". The offence carries a maximum sentence of six years in
jail.

"The case is still under investigation," added Mr Moestue.
"It is still too early to say anything about the motive for the
actions."

The NCIS would not confirm who had been attacked, but the
Norsk Telegrambyra press agency said the country's largest financial
services group DNB and its Police Security Service had also been
affected.

Soca told the BBC last week that it had taken its website offline following a cyber-attack.

It said the assault had not posed a security risk, but that
it had acted to prevent other clients hosted by its internet service
provider from being affected.